Obama on the economy: 'You know what? What we did worked'
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
President Barack Obama said the economy could be even stronger if House Republicans would stop balking at even "plain vanilla" proposals from the White House.
President Barack Obama[5] wants some credit for the good economic reports of late — should he get it?
Obama started his hastily scheduled news conference[6] Friday afternoon by noting Friday morning’s jobs report[7]— six straight months of job gains above 200,000, the best streak since 1997 — and this week’s report that the economy grew 4 percent in the second quarter.
But reporters didn’t ask him about the economy; instead they focused on foreign crises like Israel vs. Gaza and Russia vs. Ukraine, the president’s inability to work with House Republicans, and whether CIA Director John Brennan[8] should resign now that Brennan admits his agency spied on the Senate.
He rambled on about each of those questions, sometimes too casually, at least when it came to government’s actions in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2011, terrorist attacks on America.
“We tortured some folks,” Obama said.
Dude, that’s a little too flip, don’t you think?
But let’s get back to what Obama had to say about the economy.
“The economy is clearly getting stronger,” he said.
“You know what? What we did worked.”
The steady growth in jobs this year “shows the power of persistence,” he said.
A lot of businesses would argue that the economy would be even stronger if it weren’t for the additional regulatory burdens imposed on them by the Obama administration.
Obama counters that the economy would be even better if Congress — specifically House Republicans — would work with him on “pretty sensible, mainstream approaches” that he’s proposed on issues ranging from tax reform to infrastructure investments.
References
- ^ Kent Hoover (feeds.bizjournals.com)
- ^ This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (feeds.bizjournals.com)
- ^ Twitter (twitter.com)
- ^ Google (plus.google.com)
- ^ Barack Obama (feeds.bizjournals.com)
- ^ news conference (www.c-span.org)
- ^ jobs report (www.bizjournals.com)
- ^ John Brennan (feeds.bizjournals.com)